epsilonGreedy

There are two reasons for that. We have off-shored making things to other countries and thus exported associated industrial power consumption and as the red section of your graph illustrates fuel economy in car engines was a big gain. Power supply instability and blackouts will be political problems. The men from the ministry and local nuclear stations engineers will struggle to explain why a reactor cannot be run for a few more years. The 45 year old Hinkley reactor should have been closed down 6 years ago but its scheduled closure was delayed until 2023. However it went offline last year for inspections of cracks in the graphite core. Now its operator has decided to close it earlier than the 2023 date but even so they are seeking permission to restart this aging sickly reactor for another final fling of 12 months of power generation because the cracks have been deemed to be tolerable. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/19/edf-confirms-hinkley-point-b-to-be-shutdown-earlier-than-planned The power generation crunch is 4 years away but even now the precursors for a UK Chernobyl are developing. In 2010 the Government identified where the next 8 nuclear power stations should be build and yet by 2026 we will only have one of those new stations.

History, memory and decisions are formed through events, not averages. On average in my life the UK power network has been extremely reliable, if an unscheduled loss of mains power between 7am and 11pm for +30 minutes represents a memorable inconvenience, then I have experienced 268,000 half hour periods of stable mains power since the industrial unrest of the mid 70's but I still remember the 10 to 20 blackouts and candles in the 1970's. As a first world nation we expect 100% mains power reliability and that reliability is tested and assessed over short periods. Your averages count for nothing when the power goes out and people get stuck in lifts, NHS operations are cancelled and food spoils in a defrosting freezer. The problem times for the UK power network will come in about 4 to 5 years and those pushing a fast track switch to renewables consistently evade the crunch point scenario. Once coal and half our nuclear capacity has gone what happens at 6pm on a November evening in 2025 when a high pressure system has settled over the north sea for days and turned off the wind? You have no answer beyond vague hand waving wibble about sucking power from all those plugged in Teslas and new age battery technology still being debugged in the research lab.

If I shorten a galvanized roofing strap will the exposed bare metal ends trigger runaway corrosion and failure within a few decades? The metal strap in question is a dragon tie to link a hip rafter end to the wall plate woodwork, the hip rafter end is enclosed within a boxed eave. I am thinking of trimming these: https://www.toolstation.com/heavy-duty-twist-strap/p76010

It is interesting that 2025 is a crunch point year for generation capacity in the UK with the delayed Hinckley C programme no longer coming online that year. I warned two years ago in this forum that we were brewing up the conditions for a UK Chernobyl in the mid 2020's. Half of our aging nuclear generation capacity is scheduled to be retired over this period while at the same time we are adding additional load due to ASHPs and EVs. There will be pressure put on the management of these old nuclear stations to extend operations for a few more years and it would be difficult for a chief engineer facing unemployment to quantify the marginal risk of running a nuke station for another 2 years.

In practical terms you are proposing to tax the poor and make the rich richer.

Hmm that would leave the membrane exposed to daylight assuming an open valley. My concern is that the membrane would rot due to UV exposure after a few years.

Cosmopolitan culture and tasting menus! I remember that before I bought a plot in the middle of nowhere in Lincolnshire.

All we need now is for Cornwall's most famous mathematician to calculate the point of absorption/emission equilibrium for lead on a roof. @SteamyTea

This was my plan until I read that a membrane under a lead valley will fail due to the regular over heating as the lead bakes in the summer sun. I will phone the tech departments of a few membrane manufacturers tomorrow and report back what they say.

Can I just confirm the the layers you recommend because I don't think you recommend having the breather membrane over the valley lead? I assume what makes most sense is A1 non breather down as a 1m wide strip running along the V base of the valley. Then breather overlaps from either side of the pitch as shown in the Tyvek video above, then the valley lead should be laid over the 3 membrane layers? I can now see the logic of using a non breather membrane because of the sweat problem that I imagine is worst in cold weather when the lead surface might be near freezing point. I will buy a 15m roll of A1 Protect for the valley. A1 Protect is strong stuff and has held up to 6 months of non standard use in my temporary roof cover while being exposed to the sun. I used a single roll of A1 Protect over the rafter ends at the eaves to run water clean off the roof from the tarpaulin that stopped just short of the rafter ends. https://www.protectmembranes.com/public/protect-a1-underlay/p/6

A bit of an armchair question but I am trying to resolve the different advice on laying a regular breather membrane under a lead valley. Some say the lead will heat up on a hot day and damage the membrane. The certified temperature range of one breather membrane I looked at was no more than 100 degrees C but I guess a 30 degree roof at near 90 degrees to the mid summer sun could be heated to an egg frying temp. (p.s. apparently an egg can be fried at 63 degrees C so now I am even more confused). Not laying membrane here under a valley seems like a recipe for leaks. This Tyvek video demonstrates how to lay membrane under a valley, perhaps their working assumption is that a grp valley will be used.

Hey guys just when I wanted a long rambling multi-day thread full of If, Buts and Confusion, I instead get instant clarity. I will now have to go outside and dig this hole.

I need to dig a hole to plant an apple tree that is described as a bush tree with an expect final size of 3m wide by 3m high. I understand there is a general 5m minimum distance rule when planting a tree close to house foundations but it would be useful to reduce for this apple tree. The ideal position would be 3.5m from a garage with 1m deep foundations where the concrete pour was 600mm x 600mm. My new build is not past final Building Control inspection yet.

@Dutch Are you extending an existing property leftwards? I ask because I am trying to understand if the oversized master bedroom is a result of an existing constraint. Overall I think it is a good design that achieves a lot in a small footprint. I agree with the excess bedroom observation but only you know your requirement, I would convert one bedroom into a study to fit my lifestyle. The original stair orientation worked for me because it creates a larger open plan connection between kitchen and living room. What head height and space will you get in the mezzanine? My feeling is these do net get used in practice.

Any floor designer will be able to calculate the deflection of the floor you paid for and the greater deflection of the floor as installed. These are unambiguous numbers that a matey gaggle of the builder, BCO and SE cannot ignore.

What's wrong with it?

Have a look at the photos in my previous thread on this subject, in page 2 I uploaded some photos of a smaller (green) telehandler lifting trusses up about 6m. My roofer (come general builder, come cattle herdsman, come suckling pig producer, come shepherd, come property developer, come reclamation yard entrepreneur) erected the trusses to the vertical after they had been lifted to wallplate height in a horizontal orientation as seen in the photos. My main trusses were attic trusses so fairly heavy at about 75kg each, the pitch is 30 degrees and the clear span 5.6m. As a 3 man team we pivoted the trusses up to the vertical. On a larger house next door with a 40 degree pitch a 4 man team lifted larger but lighter fink trusses from ground level using just muscle power.

Indeed, shades of Animal Farm don't you think? Four legs good, two legs bad. Four legs good, two legs better. Shallow sewer gradient good, steep gradient bad. became... Shallow sewer gradient good, steep gradient... why not!

When I faced a similar truss lifting challenge I used a local farmer/builder who does all the by-the-hour telehandler jobs locally. There are two driver+telehandler guys within a mile of me who are available for hire by the hour. Ask around at your local builders merchant or nearest farm, you might be surprised. 14m is a very high lift for a two story property. Your typical new build is < 5.5m from ground to wall plate. Are you expecting the telehandler to swing the trusses vertically into position?

You are putting too much faith in what the neighbour tells you, his builder just wants to finish the job with a maximum profit. It is time for you to start quoting statutory law at the neighbour.

There is another useful gradient unit of scale that the wise old builder taught me. If a soil pipe is laid correctly at 1 in 80 then when a 1.2m long spirit level is placed along the top of the soil pipe and the down hill end is raised with a man's index under that end, the level bubble should be at the center.

@joe90 Not that photo again! I have only just recovered from post traumatic viewing syndrome since the previous posting.

Last week I discovered that my trim router has a speed control = no more smoke. It now produces nice spiral wood shavings.

I think it is 1 in 80 or 12.5mm per meter. My wise old building adviser who has worked for 40 years in the gradient challenged East Anglia told me that 1 in 100 works.

In my experience angle grinders + wood = smoke and scorched wood. What am I doing wrong?